ATLANTA — The Mystics are the youngest playoff team in the history of the WNBA. And they very much looked it during their Game 1 loss to the Dream on Sunday.
They built a lead in the first half only to lose it quickly in the second. Mistakes piled up. (Atlanta had 27 points off 23 turnovers from Washington.) Free throws clanked off the rim. The Mystics alternately found themselves uncomfortably rushed and uncomfortably slowed: Rhythm was hard to come by.
When they did eventually find a spark, it was too late, in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter. The final score was 92-77. It was a bruising check for a team who had cruised through much of their stretch run to get here.
A best-of-three series does not allow much time for adjustments. Game 2 on Wednesday will be do-or-die for the Mystics. For a roster with a history of making big, fast developmental jumps, this will be its biggest challenge yet.
Trending
“This is our first time here,” said Mystics forward Kiki Iriafen. “Not that that’s an excuse, but now we know what it looks like. We have a taste for it. And we’ll be better prepared for our game on Wednesday.”
Sunday night started off relatively promising for the Mystics. They played to their strengths in the first half — packing the paint and winning the rebounding battle. And this was largely without Iriafen, typically among their most important frontcourt players, who spent much of the first half on the bench after picking up three quick fouls. Rookie center Lauren Betts filled in admirably in her stead. The Mystics led by as many as 11 and hit the locker room up by five. But there were already signs that lead might not hold long for Washington.
The Mystics had 12 turnovers in that first half. They were only lucky the Dream did not convert more of them into baskets. This was the most striking mismatch between these rosters on paper: Atlanta gets more steals than any other team in the WNBA, and Washington turns over the ball more than any other team in the WNBA, as worrying a stat combination a coach might possibly find in a playoff matchup. It spelled doom in Game 1.
“They’re just a very physical team,” said Mystics guard Sonia Citron, who led the team in scoring with 25 points. “But I think we kind of played into that. … We can’t let them speed us up.”
The Mystics struggled to find any flow coming out of the locker room after halftime. As the Dream dug in and chipped away, they got an especially big lift from the most experienced player on the floor, 39-year-old DeWanna Bonner, who dropped 11 of her 13 points in the third quarter.
Age has its limits. Youth has its advantages. But the benefit of experience felt obvious here. Bonner was playing in her 99th career playoff game. Nine of the 12 players on the Mystics’ roster were playing in their very first. The difference was hard to shake.
“We just let them get comfortable offensively,” said Citron, who also had six rebounds and three assists. “In the first half, we did a good job of just making everything hard for them, and then in that third quarter, we just let some of our discipline slip.”
This was the biggest loss for the Mystics since before the All-Star break in July. But for all its frustrations and lapses and errors, there were bright spots here, too. Washington finished with 50 rebounds to Atlanta’s 31. Citron had a remarkably complete performance, and Iriafen recovered well from her foul trouble to make the most of her limited minutes, finishing with 15 points and 14 boards. The defense meaningfully limited Dream star Angel Reese, particularly in the first half, when she shot 1-for-11. There was a pathway here to a potential win. Washington is now tasked with navigating that path for Game 2.
Much of the conversation around the Mystics this season has centered on player development.
Head coach Sydney Johnson often sounds like a proud dad — eagerly relaying new milestones and signs of improvement. The Mystics of June were very different from the Mystics of August. In some ways, Game 1 felt like a regression, with the roster falling back into mistakes they had mostly outgrown over the last few months. But this roster knows that growth is not always linear. When the Mystics have stumbled backward, they have generally been able to recover quite well.
“I’ve really been humbled by how fast and how quick they’ve grown from one week to the next,” Johnson said before tipoff. “That’s frankly why we’re sitting here. Just because we’ve gotten so much better as a team.”
They do not have a full week to grow. But they do have a few days. And that has been enough for this group in the past.
A favorite story of Johnson’s is the Mystics’ road trip out to Golden State back in July. They had two games against the Valkyries, a title contender among the best teams in the league, and one that beat the Mystics soundly when they last met in 2025. Johnson challenged them to improve on that result in 2026. They did. Washington’s first game against Golden State was a tough, five-point loss, and the rematch two days later was a win. Johnson has said that it felt like watching the Mystics grow up in one night.
Now, to extend their season, they must do it again.
“I think we had fight tonight,” Iriafen said. “But we have another level that we can get to.”
Author
